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Mystery Zone
The Mystery Zone - also known as the'' Void Roads, the Black Between,'' or Knight's Night - is a strange, sprawling abyss of absolute darkness, and is also where one will end up if they interact with the Wild Roads via specific patterns of movement, either by accident or intent. The exact relationship between the Wild Roads and the Mystery Zone is not entirely understood, but it seems as if the existence of the Zone is necessary to the leylines themselves being able to exist. In old legends and ballads from the medieval age, the Mystery Zone was described as a field of battle - the warrior's ground where Aura Guardians would flush the forces of the fairy realms and attempt to overwhelm them with energy, duelling in the dark until there was either a clear victor, or a retreat and surrender. In appearance, it is nothing more than an eternal umbra as large as the world, but, despite the lack of any natural light source, living beings will appear visible to both themselves and others while within the space. The Void Roads are impossible for most humans or pokémon to attempt to navigate, for a simple reason - it only takes one wrong step to leave you hopelessly trapped, unable to go forwards, backwards, or anywhere at all, as helpless as a cutiefly on sticky-paper. And once trapped, there's no escape as slithery shadows, impossibly darker than even the landscape itself, start to close in... While inheriently an incredibly ''dangerous place for most native lifeforms, the Mystery Zone is nevertheless enticing to those who know of it, primarily for the manner in which its nature could be potentially exploited. Slipping in and out of the Zone could, by the knowledgable, be used to cross great distances (as well as very tiny ones) in no more than an instant, bypass obsticles such as chasms and walls, and also as a way to seemingly "teleport" in combat - the possible implications are endless, but the pool of individuals who can actually make practical use of anything it has to offer is fractional. The only native-born beings who '''can' safely traverse the Mystery Zone in any reliable fashion are: * Aura-Talents of any species - and only those born with a supernaturally high level of ability; merely having an affinity for Aura as a natural consequence of one's species or training isn't enough. Being a lucario is no guarentee you'll survive, nor is being a non-Sensitive who's learned how to pull off a few Aura tricks. * Supernatural entities, who can 'see' the Wild Roads in a way humans and pokémon cannot. They are unable, however, to sense the flow of the ley directly - bar the tiny handful of Aura-sensitives that exist among this group. * Robotic and synthetic beings, including artificial pokémon such as Magearna and Porygon-Z, on account of their not being truly alive in a biological sense. Soul-possessed machines could potentially be vulnerable; whether they would be or not depends on the nature of their soul and how it's stored within the artificial body. * Kokoro and Altheas. Being particuarly strong Empaths, these two can reach out and link their hearts to those who have the power to guide them through safely. * Those who are accompanied by any of the above. Whether a being visiting from another wrold would be able to safely enter and exploit the Mystery Zone would depend on the sorts of natural skills, magics, or talents that they possess. Tweaking/Sidling The process of slipping into the Mystery Zone is known in modern parlance as tweaking, on account of the seemingly nonsensical, erratic movements one would have to make in order to 'skew' away from this world and into the Black Between - to an observer, it would look as if the tweaker were running, stopping and turning in random directions along the ground. The old name for this process, which is still used by the more classically-minded like Riley, is sidling, ''refering to the sequence of oblique movements that one must make in order to reach their ultimate destination. As tweaking requires the one doing so to know ''exactly where the leylines in one's immediate vicinity are located in order to execute the correct paths, it is highly unlikely for a person to wind up in the Mystery Zone accidentally - although such can, and does, ''sometimes happen, and those poor souls are seldom seen again. To return to the real world from the Mystery Zone, one 'merely' needs to walk along a safe path until their intended destination is reached - it really is that simple. Supernaturals like yokai and fairies have an instinctive intuition for where they need to go, and Kokoro and Altheas have a unique method all their own - but for a human or pokémon Aura-sensitive, it would require every ounce of their abilities to detect a safe way through, and much practice before one could roam the Zone with the finesse of a fairy. Exceptionally high-level Empaths, such as Kokoro, can access the Mystery Zone without needing to tweak - in fact, in her case, she doesn't even need to ''move; her only requirement for entry is that she must be making direct physical contact with the ground (and thus, the leylines). From there, all she, and similar Empaths such as Altheas, needs to do is open her heart and ask for help, and the Zone brings itself to her, rather than the other way around. The Unempty Void: Lifeforms of the Mystery Zone Even in the Mystery Zone, life finds a way - in a very limited sort of fashion. Due to its relationship with the Wild Roads, the Void Roads are hardly a void when it comes to aura - quite the opposite. Because its levels of ambient aura are so ''high, (to be continued~) A blue wisp can often be seen by those whose tumbles into the Mystery Zone are through accidental means rather than deliberate intent. It is not a living being - it would be more accurate to describe it as a holographic yokai, an illusion projected from somewhere (or from some''thing). It is a mute and harmless presence that always moves in precise ways depending on its locations, never travelling where ley are not present. Those who observe it and then follow its paths ''exactly ''have a much better chance of exiting the Mystery Zone safely - however, even this is no guarentee that one will ''not ''run into trouble. The source of the Mystery Zone's deadliness, as well as the origin point of the wisp, are not understood. Those who have travelled there and back in recent years, however, report the distinct sensation that a ''heart ''somehow beats deep within the black - and that sometimes, one can hear bells, tinkling like giggles, in the rhythm of their footfalls... Category:Lore Category:Locations Category:Terminology